Posted 1 year ago (May 16, 2011 at 4:22 PM) in Social Media, Strategy
As I've read through some of the case studies for social media, they sound really amazing. So amazing, in fact, they seem unreal, unreachable, and unbelievable. I mean, Twitter helped Dell to generate $1M in revenue! You'd have to be lucky to get those kind of results. And as the old saying goes, "I'd rather be lucky than good."
Was it luck at all? Maybe a little. There's an element of chance with social media that you can't ignore. That said, you can hedge your bets against it. Here's what I mean.
Consider the A-list celebrity. They joined twitter and overnight have 2 million followers like Charlie Sheen. Chances are their tweets will be seen by the masses since they started with critical mass with very little effort to reach it. Sheen just took advantage of the opportunity before him. Yes, he worked hard to be a famous actor and you can too.
Compare that to lil' ol' me, Stephan Barrett with 380 or so followers (395 to be exact and I love each one of you!). My effort has to be really big to reach the critical masses. I tried acting when I was 5 years old. I tripped walking up the stage and it ruined me for life! If I mix that with super writing power, then my effort will go farther, but would still require massive action. Oh by-the-way, how am I doing on the writing so far?
As I start my own personal branding and outreach initiatives, I've realized starting is the hardest part. Building momentum takes time. And the patience to see it through. It's the same thing I tell my clients: some are lucky enough to have a huge following already, without trying. That's the makings of those magical case studies. Others have to really work hard, create a sound strategy, and apply massive action to build momentum. The outcome can be the same, from what I see, they just started from opposite sides.
My plan is to contribute to our community one blog and tweet at a time, loving each step and every member the whole way. I know I'll need massive effort to start and that's where you come in. Please comment and share! I'd love to discuss and debate this idea more.